The dominant hardware design paradigm is a synchronous (clocked) design style. Recent research has made asynchronous or self-timed systems attractive again. This paper introduces Balsa, a language and framework for synthesizing circuits using a technique of syntax direct translation. Balsa has been used to generate the DMA controller used in AMULET3i, an integrated asynchronous microprocessor design for embedded systems. This paper introduces the key features of the language.